ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s shooting range is so crucial for training that it stays busy even during the winter, former facility director Clarence Hines said.

The range, located off the Gasconade exit in south St. Louis, is currently abandoned – too dangerous for officers and the public because it’s falling apart. Entire pieces of structural wall are missing in some places. That wall is located next to Interstate 55.

Some of the baffling—a range requirement for safe shooting containment—is collapsing, too.

In an email obtained by FOX 2 News, the academy had warned that “[SLMPD] cannot maintain a professional and fully licensed, commissioned staff without a firing range.”

Hines quit over this issue. During a phone interview with FOX 2, Hines said he’d raised the alarm about much-needed repairs for months, as well as repairs at the police academy building on Tucker Boulevard.

The former director said the building still has the same carpeting from 1991, the heating and air conditioning systems routinely break down, and the roof leaks. He said he’s heard no plans to make repairs or renovations.

“We are not going to jeopardize their safety or training,” Mitch McCoy, an SLMPD spokesman, said.

McCoy answered the concerns, stating, “We absolutely know the gun range was needing upgrades, and we are pace of starting work done as early as next week.”

FOX 2 News also learned the academy’s most recent marksmanship training was done with what’s called “dry firing” – shooting without live ammunition, which is something McCoy said was not in place of the real thing.

“That would be an insult to the dangers they face every day,” he said.

McCoy added that dry firing is still an important training piece for officers.

“It is to help with muscle memory; it’s to help with those techniques; it’s to help with scenario-based training,” he said.

McCoy said officers will get their required shooting hours at other ranges in the region for now as the SLMPD looks to get its own firing range fixed and safe as soon as possible.

“We will find the money because [the officers] deserve it,” McCoy said.

The St. Louis mayor’s office also responded about the police academy on Tucker, saying they’ve addressed some issues recently, such as tuckpointing and façade improvements with ARPA money, and that the capital committee has a list of critical needs, such as the issues with the roof and central air, that they’re hoping to address soon.